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Simeone Signoret and Oskar Werner are just part of the kaleidoscope of humanity in Ship of Fools |
Director: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Vivien Leigh (Mary Treadwell), Simeone Signoret (La
Condesa), José Ferrer (Siegfried Rieber), Lee Marvin (Bill Tenny), Oskar
Werner (Dr Wilhelm Schumann), Elizabeth Ashley (Jenny Brown), George Segal (David
Scott), José
Greco (Pepe), Michael Dunn (Carl Glocken), Charles Korvin (Captain Thiele),
Heinz Rühmann (Julius Lowenthal), Lilia Skala (Frau Hutten), Barbara Luna
(Amparo), Christiane Schmidtmer (Lizzi Spokenkieker), Alf Kjellin (Freytag),
Werner Klemperer (Lt Huebner)
Stanley Kramer was the man who went his own way in Hollywood.
Struggling to find work after returning from the Second World War, he set up
his own production company which quickly specialised in critically acclaimed
“message” films. It’s the sort of film making that hasn’t always aged well.
Kramer’s style hasn’t often either – even at the time he was seen as achingly
earnest and worthy. Ship of Fools was
the sort of perfect project for him: a massive best-selling novel about a huge
subject, humanity itself. It was about big
themes and it felt really important. It was perfect Kramer material.
In 1933, a ship sails from Mexico back to a newly Nazified
Germany. On board, the passengers and crew blithely continue their own personal
dramas and obsessions – it really is literally a “ship of fools”, as we are
informed in the film’s opening by wry observant German dwarf Carl Glocken
(Michael Dunn) who serves as an occasional chorus. On board: a faded Southern
Belle (Vivien Leigh) desperate to recapture her youth; a failed baseball player
(Lee Marvin) bitter that his career never took off; a young artist (George
Segal) intent on only drawing serious subjects to the frustration of his
girlfriend (Elizabeth Ashley); a bigoted, bullying Nazi (José
Ferrer)
trying to start an affair with an attractive younger blonde (Christiane
Schmidtmer); a Jewish jeweller (Heinz Rühmann) who thinks the Nazi party can’t
be that dangerous; and ship’s doctor Willi Schumann (Oskar Werner) who finds
himself increasingly fascinated with La Condesa (Simeone Signoret), a drug
addict and a social campaigner being transported to prison in Spain. Truly, the
whole world is on board this boat! (Or so you can imagine the poster saying).
The success of the individual moments in Ship of Fools rise and fall depending on the level of engagement you
feel in each of these stories. It’s a curious mixture of tales, some of them
dancing around deeper meanings, some playing like dark farce, some plain
self-important rubbish. What’s abundantly clear is Kramer feels this is all
leading towards meaning something,
though whether he gets anywhere near expressing what this something is really isn’t clear. In fact the only real categorical
message I could take about this is that humanity has a tendency to fiddle whole
Rome burns – and that of course the Nazis are bad.
There is an attempt to suggest a world in microcosm – and some
have argued that the smorgasbord of characters are basically like facets of one
person’s personality – but really what many of these stories are deep down are
soapy pot-boilers, brought to life by good writing and fine acting. Kramer
marshals all these events with a professional smoothness: there is something
quite admirable about the fact he clearly sees the director’s role as more like
a producer’s, someone there to service the story and actors more than to cover
the film with flash. It might not make for something compellingly visual, but
it is refreshing.
What Kramer is less successful with is the heavy-handed importance
the film gives its serious moments. Most infamous is a moment when Glocken and
Jewish trader Julius Lowenthal are sitting on the veranda, listening to the
band while chatting about current affairs in Germany. “There are nearly a
million Jews in Germany. What are they going to do? Kill all of us?” Julius
jovially states – the band music obviously ends the second he stops speaking,
filling the screen with a chilling silence. It’s the sort of moment that is
supposed to make us feel the chill of the oncoming storm – but instead feels
manipulative and portentous. Every moment like that lands in the same way – the
film is delighted with its exploration of these shallow people, very pleased
with knowing the Nazi destruction is on the way.
This self-important bombast dates the picture more than anything
else in it. Nothing dates as badly as pretension. It’s a film that feels like
it’s been made very consciously to make you think, and which wears its attempt
to capture every level of society – from poor Spanish workers to rich Nazis –
very heavily. It also makes obvious points: naturally the only true act of
self-sacrifice comes from a poor Spanish worker, while the rich passengers can
scarcely look past their own concerns.
When it isn’t being self-important, the film too often finds
itself mired in soapy rubbish. The plotline featuring George Segal as a failing
artist and Elizabeth Ashley as a frustrated girlfriend is tedious beyond
belief, a slog through the worst kind of coupley drama that adds very little to
the film. A further plotline around the companion of a wheelchair-bound
intellectual, obsessed with an exotic dancer on the ship, could sit just as
easily in Coronation Street as it
could in a highbrow drama like this.
Despite all this, I have to say much of the acting is very strong
– even if many of the actors are cast very much to type. Vivien Leigh, in her
last performance, struggled with immense psychological difficulties during
shooting, but brings a heartfelt realism to divorced Southern belle Mary
Treadwell (an even more heartfelt version of her Blanche DuBois than in Streetcar). Kramer also allows her one
of the film’s few moments of imaginative spontaneity when she suddenly bursts
into a Charleston before stumbling back to her hotel room.
Carrying a lot of the film’s emotional weight are Oskar Werner and
Simeone Signoret (both Oscar nominated) as an unlikely romantic coupling. Werner
brings great depth and sadness to the world-weary doctor who finds himself
irresistibly drawn to Simeone Signoret’s Countess. Signoret channels her
distant, fragile imperiousness from Les
Diabloques and Room at the Top to
marvellous effect as a woman struggling with an indolent drug addiction but who
feels a genuine responsibility to the world. The quiet scenes between these two
are the closest the film gets to touching some distant meaning, even if it
never quite gets there – and again the points deep down are fairly straight
forward.
For the rest of the cast, there is hardly a weak link. Heinz
Rühmann, in his only English-speaking role, campaigned heavily for the role of
Jewish trader Julius and he is magnificent. José Ferrer swaggers convincingly
as bullying Nazi Siegfried, even if he is saddled with the most obvious, poorly written,
character. Michael Dunn (also Oscar nominated) makes a lot of his role as
charming chorus and commentator. Lee Marvin is terrific as the frustrated and
bitter baseball player. Charles Korvin gives a lot of depth to the thoughtful
and compassionate captain.
Ship of
Fools has plenty of moments of enjoyment. But as a whole it’s always a
little self-consciously important, too determined to push you to be aware of
the messages it wants you to take home. As the final shot sees a camera crane
inexorably down onto a swastika you feel smacked around the face with the film
wanting you to know that the darkness was just around the corner. The dread of
Nazism should hang over the film like a shroud but instead it feels so
repeatedly stressed to us that it loses all impact. The film wants us to know
that we know more than the characters, and goes out of its way to remind us so
that we can pat ourselves on the back when we spot the irony. Despite much of
the quality of acting and dialogue, it gets wearing after a while.
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